


Wendy's Ghost

by loosenoodlepoodledoodle



Series: Meaningful Works [11]
Category: Red Velvet (K-pop Band)
Genre: F/F, Gaslighting, Hurts So Good, LGBTQ Themes, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:34:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23892394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosenoodlepoodledoodle/pseuds/loosenoodlepoodledoodle
Summary: Wendy's been released from the hospital, and she immediately notices something strange about Irene. She must be hiding something. But will it bring them together, or tear them apart?
Relationships: Bae Joohyun | Irene/Son Seungwan | Wendy
Series: Meaningful Works [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672393
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Wendy's Ghost

It was late afternoon, and Wendy, after her early, unexpected hiatus, was looking forward to her forthcoming discharge from the hospital the very next day. Out of all her fellow members of Red Velvet, Joy had visited her the most, and each occasion had proven endearingly sweet for them both. Thus was her surprise complete when the one who had visited her the least showed up then to collect her, a day early.

“Oh. Hey, Irene…”

Irene was curt. “Hi. You can come now if you want. Shall we?”

She extended her hand to Wendy, and Wendy took it, confused but unafraid. Irene helped her get dressed, and even offered to carry her bag for her. It was full of all the junk she’d accumulated to tide her over during her stay.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

With masks and hoodies, they avoided the spotlight. Irene had a taxi waiting for them. Wendy thought this was strange, but she didn’t want to be rude, so she said nothing.

It drove them to an unfamiliar part of the city.

“We had to change living arrangements abruptly,” explained Irene. “You and I now have an apartment to ourselves.”

“Really? Why?”

Irene was silent for a moment.

“Virus scare,” she said, her white face tinged with pink.

After some time, the cab pulled up to the curb. Irene paid the driver with cash, and then she was helping Wendy into their new building. At least it wasn’t a downgrade from their previous abode.

They entered a lovely two-bedroom flat. Wendy’s room was full of moving boxes, her bed unmade, so Irene offered to share quarters since it was rather too late to unpack.

“Gee, thanks,” said Wendy. “For everything.”

Irene blushed like some shy little girl, and not a woman of nearly thirty years. She made Wendy a small supper, which was heaven for her after all those weeks of hospital food. They each got ready for bed, and Wendy could definitely feel her energy crashing. Irene diligently tucked her into bed beside her.

“Goodnight,” she whispered gently, and she kissed Wendy on the cheek.

Wendy made an exasperated sound in response.

“What? What’s wrong?”

She grunted an excuse. “It’s my hip. Did the hospital give you some painkillers for me to take home?”

“Oh. Um, I don’t remember. I’m sorry, let me take a look.”

Irene got up and searched, but Wendy knew she had forgotten them.

She tried not to get mad.

“I can’t find any pills, but I do have this.”

Irene held out a bottle of wine. Wendy blinked at her.

“I guess that’ll have to do,” she said drily. Suddenly she became aware of an overwhelming thirst.

***

Wendy woke up alone the next morning, the pain in her head worse than that in her hip. She managed to reach the bathroom, and when she was finished, looked around the apartment for Tylenol and tea. Successful, she nursed her drink until her stomach rumbled. A search of the kitchen revealed a dearth of variety in food, but she did scrape together eggs, toast, and a banana. Hunger sated, and starting to feel better, she decided to message Joy and the others, to see if they wanted to visit. (She didn’t think _she_ was up to visiting _them_.) That’s when she finally realized her phone was missing.

“Gosh, Irene,” she muttered, “you really should’ve asked the others for help.” Indeed, why hadn’t she? The list of oddities started to grow long.

“There’s no landline phone…”

…and her computer was missing, too.

Wendy, without even getting properly dressed or put together, headed towards the door. It was a heavy and imposing thing, built for privacy and security. It was not the sort of door you could slip notes under, and the intercom was not hooked up. Worst of all, it was locked, and it could not be readily un-locked from the inside, at least as far as Wendy could see.

She felt her heart in her chest, ever so faintly. A chill ran up her spine.

“This is like something out of _Oldboy_.”

She knocked on the door, calling for help a few times, but quickly gave up. She tried opening the windows, but they were the kind you couldn’t climb out of, not that it mattered. She was too high up to escape that way, and probably no one would ever notice her pleas from the street far below. Launching a note out there was equally hopeless, too. What could she say? _Help, I’m trapped and I don’t know where I am?_

She turned on the television. It was not hooked up to receive any channels.

_I am completely and utterly alone in here, cut off from the outside world._

***

She was lying in bed when she hear Irene come in around lunch time.

“Wendy, are you still here? I brought us something to eat.”

Wendy refused to move. Irene had to come in and find her.

“Are you alright? You haven’t been sleeping all day, have you?”

“I was hungover. Sorry.”

Irene pressed her hand against Wendy’s forehead, like a loving mother checking her child for fever. “That’s okay, it’s not your fault. It’s mine. I should have been more prescient.”

_Speaking of which—_

“Have you seen my phone?”

Irene frowned, and shook her head sadly. “No. It wasn’t in your bag?”

Wendy shook her head too.

“My gosh, I’m so sorry. I must have lost it last night, or left it behind. I’ll buy you a new one if I can’t find it.”

Wendy didn’t say anything.

“Here, let’s go eat in the dining room. I brought us bulgogi and rice.”

Wendy “needed” Irene’s help walking. She made sure to lean extra heavily on her, being as exhausting as possible.

The food was delicious, but they ate in silence. Wendy noticed Irene slowly starting to fidget more and more, as if the guilt was building up inside, getting ready to overflow. She decided to make it worse.

“There’s something wrong with the door. And the intercom doesn’t work.”

“Oh really?” Irene began to appear visibly nervous. “I’ll have to ask the superintendent about it. Maybe he can fix it soon. But it might be a while. There’s been a new outbreak, and technicians may be hard to come by. For the present.”

Wendy was going to ask about the television next, then about her missing computer, but she decided to cut to the chase.

“Are you imprisoning me here?”

A gasp escaped Irene’s mouth, and she sputtered her denials. They only proved the opposite to Wendy.

“There is nothing you can say, that would convince me otherwise. So just come clean, and let’s move on from there.”

Shock registered on Irene’s face.

“What the hell? How could you say such a thing? Here, use my phone and call someone.”

Wendy did thusly.

_“Hello?”_

“Joy? It’s Wendy. Um…I had to borrow Irene’s phone. Uh, how are you?”

_“I’m good. I think we got lucky.”_

“Oh. Er, what happened? I’ve kind of missed the news cycle.”

Joy proceeded to give an overview of events, though even she didn’t know the details.

_“…but, basically the old building’s on lockdown. The whole neighborhood, in fact. We’re lucky we got our stuff out when we did.”_

“Oh, that! I can’t find my PC!”

Wendy thought she could feel Joy’s pity in the brief silence that followed.

_“That’s really too bad. I don’t think they’ll let anyone back in for two weeks. You’re out of luck, I’m afraid.”_

Now Wendy was silent for a moment.

“So…how’d we end up with these room assignments?”

_“It was pretty much random. Seulgi ended up with Yeri, and I’m by myself.”_

Wendy expressed her condolences.

_“You’re so sweet, Wendy! Well, I’ve got to eat lunch now.”_

“Okay. Bye.”

***

Wendy apologized to Irene, though not profusely, as she maintained a lingering suspicion.

“Don’t worry about it. I’d be a little paranoid, too, if it were me.”

She allowed Irene to help her back to the bedroom, and to retrieve a book for her to read. She noticed immediately when Irene chose not to head back out to the living room.

“What are you doing?”

Irene bit her lip.

“I’m kind of lonely. Can I stay here and read with you?”

Wendy blinked. “Sure…”

Irene snuggled beside her on the bed.

“Oh, one more thing—I checked to see if I could get your pain meds and your phone, but only patients and staff are allowed back in now. I don’t know when I can go back for them. I’m sorry.”

Wendy turned onto her uninjured side, facing away from Irene. “It doesn’t hurt that badly right now.”

They read quietly for a little while, until Wendy’s eyelids began to get heavy. She let her book droop in her hands.

“Hey…what are you reading?”

“ _Portrait of Markov_ ,” said Irene. Wendy didn’t get the joke.

“Um…what would you be doing if you were here with someone else?”

Irene was confused. “What do you mean?”

“Like, if you’d been paired with one of the others here, instead of me.”

“I’d be doing the same thing, I guess.”

“Nothing different?”

Irene hesitated. “Do you _want_ me to do something different?”

Wendy imagined feeling the other girl’s fingertips run down from her shoulders to her lower spine.

“Can you tickle my back?”

“Sure.”

It was better than Wendy had hoped. She felt so relaxed, so at ease. She was nearly asleep when Irene’s hand drifted further down than it should have.

_“Don’t touch me there,”_ snapped Wendy. Irene flinched and recoiled.

“I—I’m sorry!”

She got out of bed, and the last thing Wendy could see was that she was shaking as she passed through the bedroom door.

***

She opened her eyes in the dark. All she could see was a small light, fading in and out. She reached out to it, and found her phone plugged into the wall, charging. It smelled of disinfectant.

“Irene?”

She took the phone and turned the screen on. It was after ten. Looking around, she found herself still alone.

_Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. And, maybe I shouldn’t have snapped at her._

She got up, hungry. Leaving the room, she found Irene asleep out on the sofa. Newly added to the contents of the fridge was some kimbap. She heated it up as quietly as she could, then took it back to eat in silence. Along the way, she poked her head in her own room. The bed was still unmade.

_I should’ve done that myself already._

After she finished eating, she got back into Irene’s bed and on her phone. She found a message from Yeri, asking for some English help.

Yeri: _I don’t understand this article. But, it seems kind of bad._

Wendy followed the link, and was disturbed to find the story was about her.

" _Son Seungwan, AKA Wendy of Red Velvet, has been discharged from the hospital following her rehearsal stage accident earlier this year. Ms. Son has not been reached for comment regarding the recent controversies erupting online; SM Entertainment has been deliberately silent in response to all inquiries. On at least two occasions in the past, Ms. Son has been captured on camera describing her fellow high school students in North America via racial caricatures, and engaging in generalized categorizations of racial groups thereof. Ms. Son is not known to have ever apologized for her actions, nor has she been particularly called out for them until now. For reasons that are as yet unclear, her past has caught up to her in the form of a major internet “flame war,” in which fans and anti-fans fight over Ms. Son’s integrity, image, and the like. It has been speculated that current events were precipitated by a backlash to the plethora of support Ms. Son received after her accident. What effect if any this may have on her career in the future remains to be seen, although as K-pop becomes ever more popular abroad, and foreign revenue streams ever more important to the industry, such controversies may ultimately prove fatal to even the most popular of idols…"_

She lay there, stunned, after reading it. She searched through the comments, and while plenty of people supported her, their arguments ran hollow, even to her ears. Meanwhile, the criticisms buried her.

_Was I blind? How could I say those things? It’s like I forgot there were people around the world, people different from me, watching. They even teach about this stuff in the schools over there. Did I learn anything at all from my time in America?_

Suddenly she couldn’t stay put. She had to get out of that room, had to find Irene, had to find the one person nearby that might still accept her. But Irene had no idea about what Wendy had discovered. If she knew the truth, would she even still like her?

She went back to the living room, but the sofa was empty. She heard water running in the bathroom, and soon Irene appeared out of the fluorescent glow. She looked surprised to see Wendy.

“What’s wrong?”

But Wendy couldn’t bear to explain it.

“Um, can you come back to your room with me?” Presumably Irene would think she had had a nightmare.

“Yeah, sure.”

She followed Wendy, crawling under the covers with her. Sleepily, she slid her arm around her middle, and Wendy didn’t object.

“Um,” asked Wendy, her lips quivering, “am I a bad person?”

“Huh? Of course not. What happened?”

“Just…just tell me I’m a good person. Please.”

“Yeah, alright. You’re a good person, Seungwan.”

But Wendy didn’t feel it in her heart.

“Thanks for getting my phone, Joohyun.”

“You’re welcome. Now goodnight.”

She kissed Wendy on the cheek, her lips lingering longer than necessary.

***

Wendy woke up alone again the next morning. Checking her phone brought her sins to the fore again, and she couldn’t reply to Yeri yet. If she called her, too, Yeri might start asking her questions directly. So she called Seulgi instead.

“Hey, there.”

_“Hey. How have you been?”_

“Not bad. You?”

_“Not bad. Any cabin fever yet?”_

“Ha, ha, no. Actually, Irene spends a lot of time outside.”

_“Yeah, she’s sort of our go between. Checking in on us. I’m not sure she’s supposed to be doing it, quite frankly.”_

“Well, better her than me.” Wendy swallowed. “Uh, I read an interesting news story.”

_“Really?”_

“Uh-huh. It was in English. Yeri sent it to me.”

_“Oh, that. I don’t know why she’s worried about it. Who cares what a bunch of foreigners think? Either they like us or they don’t. We’re not dependent on them for our success.”_

“But looking back at it, what I said was pretty bad.”

Seulgi paused. _“I remember Amber said something insensitive once. Kind of recently. If you’re really sorry, apologize, and learn to be better.”_

“Oh. Okay. Thanks, Seulgi.”

_“Hope to see you soon, Wendy.”_

“Bye.”

And yet she didn’t really think an apology would be enough. If she was thoughtless once, she very probably would be so again. We all traffic in stereotypes.

Suddenly, she felt an overwhelming need to get out of that apartment. She showered and got dressed as fast as she was able, making herself sore in the process. Limping to the front door, she received a reminder of her strange situation.

She was still locked in.

_“Hello?”_

“Irene, hey. How do I open the front door? I need some fresh air.”

_“Why don’t you just open the win—”_

“I need to get out and walk around,” she interrupted.

_“It’s complicated, the security system. I can’t explain it over the phone, but I can be there in a little bit.”_

“How’s it so hard? What if there was a fire and I needed to evacuate?”

But Irene had hung up the phone.

One New York minute later, and Irene was back. She had brought a box of chocolates.

“I got these for you. I thought they might cheer you up…”

Wendy thanked her and set them aside. Irene looked disappointed, but Wendy ignored this.

“There’s a park down there, right? Can you just walk around with me? I think I’m going to lose my mind.”

Getting downstairs took some exertion, even with the elevator. Soon Wendy was sore and exhausted, and their return took a greater toll. But she appreciated Irene staying with her, waiting on her. Even if it was growing awkward at times.

The chocolates were waiting on the counter when they got back.

“I’m sorry I was so ungrateful,” said Wendy.

“It’s fine,” said Irene, but Wendy could detect her sadness. She didn’t want to let it remain untouched.

_I can’t believe I’m about to do this, but I bet she’ll like it. Here goes nothing…_

She kissed Irene on the cheek. The older girl’s demeanor changed almost immediately. Wendy thought she came across more so as a giddy teenager now than when they were both that young for real.

_It’s true. So true._ Unsure of how to process this information, she invited Irene to eat the chocolates with her.

_Hell of a breakfast, huh._

They washed down the treats with sandwiches and juice. Irene produced a cable box and got the television working. They flipped the channels, and when Wendy began to feel Irene leaning against her shoulder, she broke her silence.

“You’re in love with me.”

Irene said nothing. Which confirmed everything.

“Did you arrange for me to move here with you?”

Silence. Although Wendy could definitely feel Irene shaking a little.

“What else have you done?”

More silence. More shaking.

“I’m not mad at you, or anything.”

Tension released, but silence remained.

“Why do you even like me?”

Irene shuddered as she took in a breath.

“Because…you’re funny, sweet, and caring. And I love that. I want— _need_ , more of that in my life.”

Silence.

“Wendy, say something, please.”

“I don’t…I don’t feel that way.”

“About…” There was real fear in Irene’s voice.

“About myself. I’ve been nasty to you since I got here. Downright awful. And you’ve been nothing but nice.”

“Wendy…”

“Even if I liked you, I’m not sure I would deserve you. I feel so bad, I— _Irene?”_

Irene had gone paler than usual. Her eyes were wide with shock, and when she spoke again, there was a distinct murmur in her voice.

“What do you mean, _if you liked me?”_

Wendy gulped. “I’m not sure how I feel about you. I mean, I don’t hate you! I just…I’m not sure I feel the same way about you. That you do about me.”

Irene, frozen, closed her eyes, and when she opened them again it was almost as if another person had arrived.

“You led me on. All that snuggling. That _kiss!_ You were stringing me along!”

“What? No, I didn’t mean anything—”

“Right. You meant nothing. Because I mean nothing to you.”

“Irene, no! Wait, where are you going?”

“I’m making your bed. I’ve still got to take care of you, after all.”

She stopped at the threshold of Wendy’s bedroom.

“I’m sorry I fell in love with you.”

Both of their hearts broke, forevermore.

**Author's Note:**

> The title refers to Wendy's paranoia about Irene. Specifically, ghosts aren't real, but people still believe in them. So, Wendy believes Irene is manipulating her, but it's not true. I suppose it could also refer to ghosts of the past, as well...
> 
> Originally, this was going to be a story about Irene kidnapping Wendy and weird shit happening, but I, as I often seem to do, lacked the resolve to stick with that, and instead made this about something a bit different. So the gaslighting thing is more of a deflection.
> 
> It was also going to be longer, but then I had a new idea, and had to finish this before moving on.


End file.
